The Recurrence of the End Times

Beginning with the assumption that we today are still fundamentally inhabitants of Hegel’s world-- the modern world-- Michael Colebrook has provided an always insightful and often provocative analysis of the relationship among Hegel, Alexandre Kojève, and Eric Voegelin. The latter two are themselves first-class thinkers whose commentaries on Hegel have generated considerable controversy. Colebrook’s focus is on the symbol “End of History,” made famous in Kojève’s lectures in the 1930s in Paris and a staple of French political thinking ever since. Coming to terms with Colebrook’s judicious interpretation will be a significant future task for scholars of any, or all, of these three thinkers. -- Barry Cooper, University of Calgary It is of critical importance, in our cultural moment, that we understand the meaning of modern theories proclaiming “the end of history,” as well as the origins and appeal of the “stop-history” movements that are prevalent across the political spectrum. Colebrook’s study of Hegel and Voegelin illuminates these issues with remarkable vigor, incisiveness, and scope, and addresses also the outsize influence on twentieth-century thought of Alexandre Kojève’s interpretation of Hegel. Political theorists should be very grateful for this unique and timely book. -- Glenn Hughes, St. Mary’s University Western thought has been tempted for two centuries or more by the dream of putting an end to things by solving the human political problem once and for all. As Colebrook has argued with impressive clarity and insight, Voegelin saw that only grave evils could flow from the effort to replace the only human condition we know with a “Second Reality” that was fictive in every sense of the word. But along the way, Voegelin more or less accepted Alexandre Kojève’s mistaken claim that Hegel was wholly complicit in this project. Colebrook’s truly thoughtful book vindicates Voegelin’s anti-utopian wisdom while rescuing Hegel from his misappropriation by Kojève, the theorist par excellence of “End of History” and the “universal and the homogenous state.” Colebrook’s book is political philosophy and intellectual history at its best. -- Daniel J. Mahoney, Assumption College